"Because I work with a lot of digital games and apps, I wanted to combine my two interests and make a physical version of the digital game and potentially use the project as a teaching tool for a wider audience," Qiu tells Business Insider via email. "I also love Flappy Bird despite being a terrible player."

Flappy Bird is a notoriously hard game to play. Many people have complained about barely even being able to reach a score of two points. Qiu seems to be slightly above the average, with a personal best of five points.

"I was hoping the IRL version would be easier, but I think I made it harder than I wanted to," Qiu says. Though, she's already doing better on the IRL version than the mobile game, with a personal best of somewhere in the twenties.

This is just the first version of the game, which Qiu made using an Arduino, an open-source platform for creating electronics prototypes, two motors, and some magnetic sensors.